JoAnne at The Fairytale Nerd is hosting an excerpt from my novel, Heartweed. There’s also a giveaway to win a free copy of the e-book.
Check it out here.
52Under2: A Spy Like Me by Laura Pauling
The book I am reviewing this week for 52Under2 is A Spy Like Me by Laura Pauling. It is about 69000 words long and is available on Smashwords for $2.99.
Congratulations to Laura Pauling on the release of her novel.
Savvy Bent lives in Paris and works for her father’s company: Spy Games. When her date gets shot at in public it stop being a game.
This book delivered pretty much everything you’d expect from a spy thriller: action, mystery, a European city setting, and plot twists – oh so many plot twists.
First the good stuff.
The character of Savvy was likeable and not as useless as some YA heroines. I liked that she was on a date with Malcolm and it was no big thing. Even though she’d been eyeing him up for a few weeks the date wasn’t the be all and end all to her it was just a date – just a case of seeing how it went between them. This was a good contrast to a lot of YA novels where achieving a date with the one-true-boy is all the protagonist cares about. Savvy, initially, flying bullets notwithstanding, has bigger concerns like her job and family .
The action was well written. Savvy’s abilities were believable. The other spies and assassins… well that was less believable – I’d expect professionals to be more effective. Then again a lot of the book relies upon you not knowing who is playing what side, so maybe they couldn’t be conspicuously effective.
The bad stuff.
Epic plot twists and turns. So, it’s a spy novel and these things are expected, but I’d like for it all to make sense in the end. There were explanations given midway that made sense after the first plot twist (sort of) but not after the final plot twist (these points were never revisited). This is why I didn’t like the TV show Alias either.
The final explanation came very abruptly followed by a fairly abrupt ending that left things wide open for a sequel. It also left an awful lot of questions unanswered. (It’s really hard to be anything other than vague when discussing things of a spoilery nature.)
It was also very unclear why the father-daughter relationship was the way it was. How much did the father know? Was he in on anything? Why didn’t he take his daughter’s concerns seriously? More questions.
It was a book that left me wanting answers, but not in a good way.
Overall, I’d give this book 3 out of 5.
52Under2: Week 15 Shortlist
Week 15 of my 52Under2 book reviews.
These are the Top 5 books that caught my eye on Smashwords this week and I’ll be reviewing one of them in depth later in the week.
Raven’s Heirs by Lesley Arrowsmith
Rescued from his captivity with corsairs, Owain finds his troubles just beginning as her returns home to find intrigue brewing.
The extremely basic cover of this book does a disservice to the contents. The character names in the description promise a Welsh-/Celtic-based fantasy world. The excerpt starts with an introduction to the main character in captivity and shows us some of his supernatural abilities. From there the story moves on at a good pace and the world-building is consistent and unintrusive.
Cabaret Voltaire by Trish Tonello
In a steampunk-inspired fantasy world, Alex wants to be an artist but is prevented by her rank and gender.
The ‘Second Life’-looking cover of this book is stylish, but to me doesn’t jibe with the steampunk description of the setting. I got off to a bad start with the excerpt – I had to wade through a Foreword and a Prologue that both did little but explain the setting and the stakes, rather than letting the story speak for itself. After that the wealth and variety of speech attributions – ‘moaned’, ‘lamented’, ‘drawled’, ‘spat’, ‘sighed’ – was a little dizzying. I also found the main character – a poor little rich girl who all the boys want – not that compelling.
Dreamers by Donna Hall
When Lollie’s little sister goes missing, she must venture into a world of dreams to get her back.
The front page for this book breaks off in mid-description, which is a pity, but I still gave the excerpt a try. The excerpt is well-written and fast-paced. It quickly introduces the sisters’ relationship, before getting straight into the action. Then things take a turn for the weird.
Awakening by Sarah L Robins
Eve starts experiencing strange phenomena that lead her to her hidden mystical heritage.
The cover of this book is gorgeous. I’m less enthusiastic about the excerpt. It’s always nice to find a YA book set in contemporary Britain, rather than contemporary America. However, it takes a while for this to get started. There’s a vague prologue with glowing creatures and a dream sequence, but all of this feels a little untethered, as there’s no strong indication of who the ‘I’ is in the dream sequence. When the story proper starts, the friend interactions are good and enjoyable to read. Unfortunately, things are a little let down by the author’s flaky grasp of punctuation and grammar.
A Spy Like Me by Laura Pauling
Savvy’s first date with Malcolm, on the banks of the Seine, is interrupted when he is shot at by a sniper.
I really enjoyed reading the excerpt of this book. The main character is sparky and self-confident. Her banter with her date is fun and interesting. The action kicks off straight away with a mysterious shooting. Danger, mystery and romance are all already established by the end of the first chapter. The excerpt continues to be a fun read.
This is the book I’ll be reviewing later in the week.
52Under2: The Ironlane Detective by Paul F. Witham
The book I am reviewing this week for 52Under2 is The Ironlane Detective by Paul F. Witham. It is about 213000 words long and is available on Smashwords for $2.00.
This post is both late – because I had to flee my unheated house over the weekend – and short – because I was unable to force myself to finish reading the book.
Based on the fact I couldn’t finish the book, you can probably guess that I didn’t enjoy it. It’s a shame, because I got the feeling that there were a lot of ingredients that the author had at his disposal – not least the mixing of a steampunk era world with generation ship era technology – which could have been brought together to make a pleasing whole. They weren’t.
My dislike of this book can be narrowed down to two main problems:
1) Omniscient or inconsistent POV. The 3rd person POV dives in and out of each of the two main characters’ heads willy-nilly. Also, even when we’re staying in one of the character’s POV, that character will constantly refer to himself as ‘the detective’ or ‘the alien’. Just doesn’t work for me.
2) What is the point? I had no idea where the story was going. There were no outstanding questions that I felt a burning need to have answered, which is why I felt so at ease with simply tossing this book aside. After the first action set piece, they two main characters have to go somewhere to meet someone. Um, OK. It’s a pretty vague and unstructured plan. It’s not even like they’re really being chased or dodging pursuit. I could maybe get behind the idea of the detective needing to go to the city, but why is the alien hanging around? Pretty much because his spaceship nagged him to. The story fails to convince – on a number of levels.
Overall, I’d give this book 1 out of 5. I couldn’t even get past the 20% mark.
Books to burn
My boiler is broken. Just in time for the return of cold weather. Just in time for the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, when no one will come out to fix it.
No hot water and no central heating.
Then a question comes up on Twitter: “Which of your books would you take to a desert island?” (Or something like that.) It’s a difficult one, lots of choices, hard to narrow down. I don’t give it that much thought.
However, it does lead me onto an opposing – but more relevant – question: “Which of my books would I be willing to burn to stay warm?” This one I give a lot of thought.
There are an awful lot of books out there in the world that I would happily burn to stay warm, or just burn to protest their sheer awfulness. But the question is: Which of my books would I burn to stay warm? - not which books in general?
I sit in a room with a bookshelf on every wall except the one I’m facing, where there is a desk and window instead. All of my books are within reach of my eye. All items with mass that I’ve chosen to allow to remain in my space. Which would I consign to the flames first?
(Needless to say, those books not in this room would be first on the fire, comprising all my husbands programming books – seriously who needs physical books about programming, it’s the most covered topic on the internet.)
I select and then reject candidates for the fire. The house grows ever colder and I still can’t decide.
- The Stieg Larsson trilogy? They’re not that good really, but the set has matching covers. (Yes – the shallow and aesthetic criteria have as much sway on me as the substantive.)
- My Artemis Fowl books? They don’t match. But they are hi-fricking-larious. (Yes – I do still laugh at fart jokes. I prefer to think of it not as immaturity, but as a youthful outlook.)
- The Murakamis? Let’s face it, you’ve read one you’ve read them all. Single/divorced guy who likes jazz and cooking gets into some weird shit – there may or may not be a cat involved. I think I could pare it down to ‘Hard Boiled Wonderland…’ and ‘Wild Sheep Chase’ and not miss any of the others. Maybe. Maybe… No. Can’t do it. The combined lure of the matching covers and my taste for the slightly skewed and surreal prevents me.
- My TBR shelf? They’re mostly second hand, received in trade through BookMooch or from various public book swap shelves. But I haven’t read them yet! One of them might hold between its covers the most fabulous world, undiscovered by me, that will change my life forever. OK, not the TBR shelf – except for Moby Dick, there’s a reason he keeps ending up back there despite all attempts to conquer. Success! That’s one book for the fire.
At this point the letting agent arrives with some electric heaters to tide us over, but I’m getting carried away with my considerations.
- My encyclopaedia and/or atlas? They’re both no doubt out of date now, but there’s something solid and reassuring about being able to go to a book for information and not Wikipedia/GoogleMaps.
- My astronomy textbooks? I’ve forgotten almost all of my degree, but they remind me that I used to be smart and academic before 7 years of rub from an unrelated job sandpapered the knowledge from my brain.
- What about the massive amount of children’s/YA literature that stares at me from the furthest bookshelf? The Roald Dahls? Never! The Changes Trilogy? My favourite teacher bought me that. The Lemony Snickets? They’re just so pretty. The Narnia books? Three of them were my mum’s. The Harry Potters? Well the last couple could probably keep me warm all weekend, they’re that massive. Nah, can’t do it.
Should push come to shove, I think it would be a small and lonely fire made up of Moby Dick, a couple of novelty books (e.g. The Little Book of <blah>), 2010′s Writer’s Handbook, and a stack of gas bills.
Fortunately, the electric heater is warming up my little study a treat (and not igniting books or cats – trust me, I’m keeping an eye on them) and this weekend we hope to be able to throw ourselves on the mercy of family members with working radiators.
52Under2: Week 14 Shortlist
Week 14 of my 52Under2 book reviews.
I decided to step out of the YA silo this week and read something a bit different. These are the Top 5 books that caught my eye in SF and Fantasy on Smashwords this week and I’ll be reviewing one of them in depth later in the week.
Young Republican, Yuppie Princess by Nicole Chardenet
It’s 1984 and a yuppie-in-training gets zapped into a parallel dimension.
I really liked the description of this book, it sounded like it had a lot of fun elements in it: undines, a heavy-metal sorcerer, floppy disks (ah, nostalgia), and – according to a review quoted at the front of the book – the nerds save the day. The excerpt was good, in that the narrator had a very distinctive – though not particularly likeable – voice. However, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to enjoy the book to its fullest. Even after a few pages I could already tell that it would be chock full of US-1980s references that would go straight over my head and be wasted on me. But for someone who was there, this seems like it would be a fun read.
Beneath the Heavens by Christine O’Neill
A group of dying teenagers travel by train to the mysterious Everlands, where their diseases will be miraculously cured.
This is probably YA, even though not categorised under that heading. The description sounded interesting, especially when it mentioned mysterious deaths on the train. I wondered if I might be in for a SF/alternate world murder on the Orient Express. The excerpt let itself down almost instantly. The author uses wacky spellings of familiar places as a cheap way to create the ‘alternate universe’ vibe and does this three times within the first two paragraphs. It seems the main feature of this alternate world is that there would be a lot more ‘Y’s needed to play Scrabble. That irritated me straight out of the gate. Then there was the problem of not being sure who the protagonist was to be, as each new chapter came from the (3rd person) POV of a new character. presumably this was to set up all the inhabitants of the train (suspects?) but there are surely more succinct ways of doing this – that get more quickly to the main conflict of the story.
Blackstone and Brenwen: The Mirror and The Meretrix by Andrew Mellusco
A young fairytale lawyer must defend Red Riding Hood against a charge of murder.
This one lured me in with a great description, a good cover, and a hint that what lay within might be a little Tom-Holtish. Reuse of fairytale characters is always a popular theme with me. The author’s use of language is fun and witty. There is quite a lot of situation-based humour. The character of the young lawyer is immediately very real and likeable. The only problem I had with it was that the first chapter – dealing with a law case that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the main plot – was way too slow, probably because in the middle of the summing up all of the courtroom falls asleep. This is a funny situation I would have enjoyed if the author hadn’t decided that this meant he could drop a crapload of back story into the gap caused by their slumber. Snooze.
Spirit of ’76 by Jeff Beck
1976. When John’s first friend at a new school is found dead, John strives to find the truth about his friend’s death.
The description made this seem like quite and interesting story strongly grounded in a place and time. The fantasy elements promised by the tags – parapsychology, magic, and cults – sounded like they would add interesting flavour to the tale. However, the writing style didn’t do too much for me – being skewed towards tell over show and being utterly infested with exclamation marks, italics (for brand names and famous people’s names), bold, and inverted commas. Though 50% of this book is available in the excerpt, I don’t think I got past 2%. It was just a little too slow.
The Ironlane Detective by Paul Witham
A telepathic detective, following orders from a voice in his head, ends up deep in chaos and conspiracy.
I fell like the description for this book let it down a little. It’s listed under ‘steampunk/retropunk’ (always a favourite with me), but its description calls it an epic sci-fi set far in the future. OK – I guess I’ll wait and see how these elements tie together. The short description goes on about telepathic voices, emperors-in-exile and revolution, but the long description starts off talking about a generation ship and it isn’t until the end of the (not very long) long description that an inkling is given of how this ties into the telepaths bit. Also who is the Ironlane Detective of the title? How does he come into the revolution story? Is he the protagonist? Is he the telepath?
All of these questions are answered very quickly in the excerpt which gets straight down to business. The main character is quickly introduced as is his situation and a mysterious mission that we watch him embark on at the behest of the voices in his head. The writing of the piece has a good tone that fits well with the retro/steampunk setting that is being evoked. There are some wobbly bits, but my interest was piqued.
This is the novel I will be reviewing later in the week.
This week’s picture
Playtime in the sun with chalks.
